We've all seen them, nobody likes them, but deep down we all want to be them. I'm talking about that guy with his shades on strolling into a coffee shop (he gets bonus points for going to Think Coffee instead of Starbucks, because if it's not fair trade it's basically drinking the tears of a Colombian farmer) and before he can even open his mouth, pulls out his Blackberry to check if anyone has texted him or tagged him in a photo between the door and the counter of the coffee bar. I can say that I hate those guys, and that I've been one of them for a while.

My Blackberry is probably the closest thing I have to a child. I love it unconditionally, even when it has flaws and service outages. I depend on it implicitly, and I defend it to any and all challengers. But I can't deny that it sometimes makes me annoying to hang out with. I'm not proud to say it, but if I am in a group social situation (4 members or more) and the conversation drifts away from a topic I'm interested in, I'll just pull out my phone and start reading the news or texting somebody. I've never been particularly tolerant of people I find boring, but knowing that I have an escape plan tends to worsen the problem. Without question however, the biggest benefit to having my Blackberry around is for these kind of situations:

Friend: What was that movie called that Jennifer Aniston did with Kevin Costner?
Me (20 seconds later): Rumor Has It.

That's not a great example, because when my friend asked me that I didn't have to look it up, but you get my point. I have never been able to stand it when there is a piece of information, no matter how casual the conversation, that is left out or passed aside. I normally just store it in my brain until I can get to a computer and find it out, but now I just do it in front of you, my dinner companion. Even if you're in the middle of a sentence.

Blackberry users are annoying primarily because they divorce themselves from actual interactions with people to maintain virtual interactions, but because I suffer from intense boredom around almost everyone I meet, it saves me on a daily basis. On the plus side, if you see me thumbing away or talking to someone on Blackberry Messenger, ask me some random stuff you want to know and I'll be compelled to Google it for you.